Chapter 4 - THE VOICE FROM THE COLD PAVEMENT
The connection crackled with static, accompanied by the faint wail of distant sirens and the rhythmic beep of an ambulance monitor.
"Mr. DeLuca..." Daniel’s voice came through, raspy and choked with pain.
"I am here, Daniel," Anthony replied, his voice firm and steady.
"Sophie is safe."
"Claire brought her to Mercer Street."
"She is uninjured, and Claire is currently receiving medical care."
A heavy, shuddering exhale of relief trembled through the speaker.
"Thank God..." Daniel whispered.
"Thank God she listened to you."
Marco’s voice suddenly cut in from an auxiliary secure channel; he had joined the patch from his mobile command vehicle.
"Daniel, where are you right now?" Marco demanded, his tone filled with urgent authority.
"My private extraction unit reached the crash site ten minutes ago, but the perimeter was already overrun by municipal first responders."
"I am in the back of an ambulance heading toward Saint Jude's Trauma Center," Daniel answered weakly.
"Two patrolmen are riding in the front cabin."
"They think I am concussed and semi-conscious."
"They don't know I kept my secondary encrypted earpiece hidden inside my collar."
Marco’s tone grew darker.
"Daniel, who tampered with the car?"
"My technicians just ran a remote diagnostic on the wreck's onboard navigation computer."
"The primary route was wiped and replaced forty minutes before you picked up Sophie from the academy."
"That diversion sent you down the deserted industrial canal road where the ambush took place."
"Only three individuals hold the administrative security keys to alter that system: you, my chief of security Julian Rossi, and myself."
A suffocating silence gripped the brownstone parlor.
Sophie sat quietly on the rug, her eyes darting between her great-grandfather and the telephone console.
Daniel took a shallow, painful breath before speaking.
"Marco... you are asking the wrong questions."
"What did you say?" Marco responded, his voice tightening dangerously.
"The men in the dark SUV did not track Sophie's car because of a hacked navigation system," Daniel said, every word costing him immense effort.
"They attacked us because someone alerted them that the master phone was inside Sophie's backpack."
Claire looked up from the settee, where Martha was applying the final gauze dressing to her stitched shoulder.
"Marco said he left the phone in her bag by accident," Claire stated clearly toward the speakerphone.
From the floor, Sophie’s small voice piped up, hesitant yet remarkably clear.
"No, he didn't."
Everyone in the room turned their eyes toward the child.
Anthony lowered his gaze, his silver eyebrows knitting together.
"What did you say, Sophie?" Anthony asked gently.
Sophie set her teacup on the wooden saucer.
"Daddy didn't put the phone in my bag," the girl said, looking directly at Claire.
"Daniel gave me the bag when we were getting into the car at the piano school."
"He zipped the front pocket and told me to keep it closed until we got home."
"He said Daddy left something very important inside, and that I should give it to Great-Grandpa Anthony as soon as we arrived."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone.
Marco’s voice exploded through the line, vibrating with utter disbelief and fury.
"Daniel! You stole my secure device from my private study and placed it on my daughter?"
"You used my seven-year-old child as a courier for confidential syndicate files?"
"I will tear your throat out with my bare hands for putting Sophie in that line of fire!"
"Listen to me, Marco!" Daniel yelled back, coughing violently as blood rattled in his chest.
"If I carried that phone on my own person, Julian Rossi’s security team would have executed me before I cleared the estate gates!"
"Julian has been monitoring every phone, every vehicle, and every guard for six months!"
"I had to get that device out of the compound, and Sophie's school run was the only blind spot in Julian's surveillance grid!"
Anthony raised his blackthorn cane, tapping it once against the hardwood floor to silence the shouting.
"Daniel," the old patriarch commanded with chilling composure.
"Why were you bringing Marco's private telephone to me?"
Daniel’s breathing slowed down, turning shallow and unsteady.
"Because Marco refused to look at the archive files stored in the hidden partition," Daniel whispered.
"Marco believed the official police report from two years ago."
"He believed Elena died because her brakes failed on the coastal highway during a rainstorm."
Claire felt the temperature in the room plummet.
Elena DeLuca was Marco’s late wife, Sophie’s mother, whose framed portrait still hung draped in black silk in the estate’s grand foyer.
"Daniel..." Marco’s voice lost all its anger, replaced by a sudden, hollow horror.
"What are you saying about Elena?"
"The brake line on Elena’s car was severed with an industrial crimping tool," Daniel revealed, his voice shaking with long-suppressed grief.
"The audio recordings on your secure phone contain the wiretap logs from that night."
"The order to tamper with Elena's brakes didn't come from our rivals in Chicago or the cartels."
"It was ordered by someone sitting at your own Sunday dinner table."
"Someone who wanted Elena dead because she was convincing you to take Sophie and walk away from the syndicate forever."
Before Daniel could name the person, the sound of glass shattering erupted over the telephone line.
Gunshots echoed through the speaker—three distinct, suppressed rounds fired at point-blank range.
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The sound of an ambulance skidding out of control was followed by a sickening crunch of metal.
Then, the line went dead.
